Walmart fires Marietta man who said Orlando LGBT club shooter was ‘doing community service’

Walmart has fired a Marietta man who tweeted out that the shooting at an Orlando LGBT nightclub that left 50 dead was “someone doing community service.”

The incident started Sunday afternoon when a man using the account @IWillTryLater tweeted out “Y’all see a Gay club shooting as a horrible tragedy. I see it as someone doing Community Service.” As of this morning the man’s Twitter profile said he lives in Marietta, but he has since deleted his location. The Facebook profile for a man matching his description and former job title lists his location as Marietta, Georgia.

Another user then tweeted screenshots of the offending tweets to Walmart and asked that disciplinary action be taken.

The man has since deleted his original tweets and replaced his cover photo with one showing himself in a Walmart vest making an obscene gesture. When asked for further comment, Walmart’s corporate office referred us to their original response on Twitter, which came from their official corporate press account and included the original tweet in question. Store managers at Marietta-area Walmarts did not return calls for comment.

If he did it as a representative of Walmart or on the job, they had a right to fire him. If he did it as a private citizen, he has the right to be wrong and to suffer the consequences, but not to be fired for using his freedom of speech. Islamic terrrorists have a right to exist. They do not have a right to commit acts of violence. Fundamentalists who call themselves Christians but don’t follow Jesus and celebrate when gays are killed, have a right to exist and practice their perversion. They don’t have a right to push that perversion on others.

How could anyone have known he worked at WalMart if he didn’t make it known? Therefore he brought the conseqences he suffered on his own stupid butt. He may have a right to his opinion, but others have a right to react to that opinion as they see fit. GOOD FOR WALMART.

Stop hiding behind the euphemism of “opinion.” That’s hate speech. It’s violent. It’s inherently prejudiced. His words directly contribute to the climate of hatred encompassing the LGBT community–the same climate attributed to this heinous attack. Call it for what it is.

Yes he does have a right to a bigoted opinion, but an employer also has the right to do the right thing and remove him from their payroll. As an African American you would think that he would find this massacre of innocent people appalling. Just shows that bigots come in all colors, genders, and nationalities.

he used his freedom of speech to say very hateful things and as a consequence for doing so .. they used their freedom of firing the person. just because u have the right to say something .. doesnt mean it’s the right thing to do …. u want to say it.. say it . then man up when u feel the repercussions..

i agree. i work at wall-mart as well and i was embarrassed that he was one of the family.he would of felt different if it wold of been a race thing instead of a gay thing. the fact that people died and were injured is enough to to be a tragedy. i dont care if they r gay, straight, black, white, or purple with pink polka dots. point is someone lost a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, or just a friend. its sad people, look out side of the box.

I too work for Walmart and am a Transgender Woman, I have worked for Store 2559 for 6 years and I applaud Walmart for doing the right thing and taking a stand against bigotry and hate. I have been treated by my store with nothing less than complete respect and gratitude.

But yet if someone made this same remark about the Charleston church shootings in reference to black people he would have been appalled … amazing how some people can’t seem to grasp the concept that hate crimes like the Orlando shooting and the Charleston Church Shootings are crimes against all of us.

Has anyone sent a copy of his tweet and info to the FBI……specially important now that he has been fired. This is a rhetorical question, in that I have already notified the FBI. I just wanted to demonstate that alerting the authorities when this kind of stuff pops up is necessary. Not that we, as Americans, should become spies on each other. No Way. But when a message is so flagrant, followed by a loss of job, we need to take a tiny first step toward averting a possible revenge mass shooting and get the offender the mental health services he needs ASAP.

Whoa!! FBI, for what?? White racist terrorist groups spout hatred all the time and no one call the FBI over it. Mexican American are targeted by legal Law Enforcement and those pigs say God aweful things, and no one calls the FBI. WHY???

The deplorable things this man said are just that deplorable, until all racist comments made online are similarly dealt with, the termination of job, I get it, protect the Company. Why further punish? He is black and will have hard enough time getting a job anyway.

Also typical of an observant Sikh…it doesn’t really mean that much with simple arbitrary inference. He is without the appropriate headgear if he were Sikh or Muslim. There are plenty of bearded men who are gamers, maybe we should start blaming shooting games as so many do. I hope you realise the danger assumptions can lead to. I am well aware of Islam as with the other Abrahamic scripts being anti-gay hence I am Secular Humanist. It can be an influence no doubt, but it’s silly to go ‘ahh beard…probably Muslim’. It’s a beard ffs. I have a beard, I also have olive skin and black facial hair, there are days I look in the mirror and look like what people regard a ‘stereotypical Muslim’. Asifa Lahore however is a muslim but is nothing like the stereotype – a Sufi Londn Drag Queen.The man also looks African-American, there is a big conservative Church in that sort of community – He could be either or neither. He could be a simply overly masculine man with an axe to grind as he feels threatened by gay men of his own volition.

Walmart did what they thought was right apparently but they should have contacted the FBI first , Anyone who makes a comment like this should be investigated by the FBI and deported. Period ! no questions asked.

See this is where the First Amendment does protect this man. I feel the actions taken were proportionate to what was said. He certainly can’t be deported, especially if he is a natural born citizen, but even if he is an immigrant who became a naturalized citizen, the First Amendment protects him from any sort of legal retribution. The company that employed had the choice to punish him for his statement, as they did not want someone with his beliefs representing their company, they chose to terminate his employment. The government cannot take any legal action, based on his statements alone. Now if they chose to investigate him, and found that he is involved in criminal activity, then prosecution would be in order.

Unfortunate and interesting that an African American would say such a thing since it was also said of that ethnic group in the not to distant past as well as of the native Americans. You might think there would be more progress in our society. SAD.

This man is demonstrating closet case latent homosexual desires. in other words i believe he is gay. he has internalized homophobia and now the world knows it. all i can say is if he comes to west hollywood with that attitude, he will know what it is like to deal with angry gay men. but again I BELIEVE HE IS GAY.

Apprently the man has issues if his response is to give the finger in a walmart vest. If he had shown contrition i don’t think he should have been fired from his job for saying something like that. And I am gay.

I’m gay and I absolutely think he should have been fired and hopefully fully investigated by the authorities. Maybe he can get some help and take some anger management classes. 50 of LGBT people just died because of some asshole like him

I’m glad he’s been promoted to customer status at Walmart. And to comment on the first amendment every one is protected by free speech from
Legal repercussions however socially unacceptable behavior does guarantee you a job

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